When Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring in 1962 (Carson 2002 [1962]) to denounce the destructive effects of synthetic agricultural chemicals and pesticides on wildlife, it quickly acquired a wide Anglo-American readership, assuming cult status (Lear 1993). Retrospectively, the book's publication would be regarded as a defining moment in the making of the modern environmental movement. Through the 1960s and 1970s, mass protests appealed to Carson's work as part of a rejection of the new reliance on toxic chemicals in modern industrial systems and the contamination risks synthetic chemicals posed to humans as well as bird and animal life, calling attention to the fragile interdependency of wider webs of ecological relationships. Not only the publication of Silent Spring, then, but its rapid and wide resonance and the subsequent scale of civic organising were a remarkable feat. Such public pressure, coupled with a liberalising of US politics in the 1960s, culminated in the passing of progressive environmental legislation in 1972, including a ban on the use of DDT – a popular pesticide. However, in this chapter we seek to demonstrate that the book's claims, however impactful, emerge from a much wider context of ideas and struggle. The environmentalism that emerged during the 1960s is inseparable from this wider context, including figures and movements that often go unremembered. Unpacking the surrounding influences helps us understand why Carson's work took on such resonance – but also, why other important books, ideas and figures are not remembered in the same iconic way.

The story of the public regulation of DDT is a good starting point for this book because it is one of the founding myths of modern environmentalism. It is a story seductive in its simplicity. There is a heroic figure who sounds the alarm, drawing attention to a terrible enemy invading the comfort and peace of the white, American suburb. The actions of this figure, and the mobilisation of science, results in a political response and celebrated outcome: the chemical is banned. Like all good stories, this one has a beginning, a middle and an end; a hopeful arc that leaves us secure in the knowledge that liberal political institutions are functioning well. But like all narratives, it is partial, reflecting the values and assumptions at the heart of modern environmentalism. What other figures, experiences, places, histories and chemical relations are obscured?